All posts tagged downgrading

From inside Japan, economic policymaking looks like a mess. Six prime ministers in six years. A ruling party that can barely rule. Outstanding government debt worth more than twice the country’s economy. A plan to curb that borrowing that, at best, “looks leisurely relative even to other fiscally-challenged high-income countries,” as Fitch Ratings put it when downgrading the country on Tuesday. And high uncertainty about whether even that weak plan can make it through parliament. Oh, and a central bank that has failed to end extended deflation, and is now caught in a war with politicians over whether it’s doing enough to bail them out. And yet, put Japan in a global context and, things maybe look kinda rosy.

The Bank of England’s Adam Posen, a long-time scholar of Japanese economic policy, discusses prospects for further monetary easing in both Japan and England with Wall Street Journal Tokyo bureau chief Jake Schlesinger.Read More »

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Japan Real Time is a newsy, concise guide to what works, what doesn’t and why in the one-time poster child for Asian development, as it struggles to keep pace with faster-growing neighbors while competing with Europe for Michelin-rated restaurants. Drawing on the expertise of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires, the site provides an inside track on business, politics and lifestyle in Japan as it comes to terms with being overtaken by China as the world’s second-biggest economy. You can contact the editors at japanrealtime@wsj.com